


Mulled Wine and Mistletoe

by Neffectual



Series: 104 Reasons to Stay Alive [29]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Female Hange Zoë, Sappy, Traditions, orisor inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas markets have become something of a holiday tradition for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mulled Wine and Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Written to 'It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful' by Slow Club. Also, I want wine.

Holiday traditions were never important until they’d been together for a few years, when things which they had just done before became traditions, in their own ways, as they built family traditions into couple traditions, bundling up in coats and hats and scarves to head to the Christmas markets. Some of them are awful, just overpriced wooden cabins masquerading as pubs which only sell mulled wine and make you sit outside when it’s below freezing. Hanji doesn’t believe in drinks where you have to keep your gloves on, mostly because she tends to gesticulate with her hands and the liquid flies everywhere. The few which sit on the riverside are bearable, if a little over-populated by harried-looking women shepherding groups of children, and later, teenagers. Mike shudders theatrically at them, as if he can smell the tang of tea tree in the air, and Hanji mimes throwing up as the scent of cheap body spray trying to hide unwashed boy smell floats over them. They laugh, those awkward years so far behind them now, and Hanji rests her head on his shoulder for a moment, enjoying the closeness allowed by the cold weather.

Their favourite market is generally full of people like them - twenty-something couples on the side nearer to thirty - and mostly does food, rather than the little knock-off items which break five minutes after you get home. Mike likes to stock up on continental sausage, and Hanji likes to joke that if that was he was after, he should have stuck with boys. He rolls his eyes, the joke no funnier with every passing year, but it’s becoming one of the little things they say. Hanji likes cheeses, wrapped in wax to keep them good, and insists that Christmas involves at least four different types, without fail. Mike sighs and holds his hand out for the bag; sometimes, he jokes, he thinks she only keeps him around to be a mobile wallet and shopping trolley. She laughs and kisses him on the cheek, before bouncing gleefully away to a fudge merchant offering slices of sweets in every flavour available, including some which Mike doesn’t feel belong in fudge. Coriander has its place, of course, but that place is not tucked into caramelised sugar, as far as he’s concerned.

Their last stop is always for more mulled wine for Hanji, Mike declining because someone has to drive them home, and the one year they had to call Erwin, Levi had come with him, and they’d had a lecture about proper grown-up behaviour for the twenty minute journey back to their flat. So Hanji drinks another cup, and Mike kisses her, chasing the spiced flavour around her mouth, letting them share it without putting Mike over the limit. The drive home tends to be full of rustling as Hanji goes over their purchases, comparing them to next year, and staring hungrily at her cheeses as if she wants to try eating them whole. It doesn’t snow much, but the air tends to be crisp with frost by the time they leave, threatening to paint patterns on the windows overnight and make the car impossible to defrost in the morning. With the heater on, Hanji emerges from behind the layers of woolens like a caterpillar’s cocoon revealing a butterfly, shaking her hair free and replacing her glasses when her scarf catches on them, grinning when Mike takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at her.

Once home, the other layers are peeled off, and once their purchases are put away, they go to bed, Hanji’s body small and fragile against Mike’s larger one, the sheets chilly to start with until their body heat warms them, shaking away the last of the cold. Hanji likes to lie with her head on Mike’s chest, listening to the thunder of his heart beating, just for her, his huge hand in her hair, petting her like something precious, something to be kept safe. Sex is something which becomes less important as the years go on, as closeness becomes necessary and desired, and sex is simply the cherry on the top. Hanji tries to tell herself that it doesn’t mean more when Mike carries her bags without complaining, or rubs her back, or brushes her hair, than it did when they used to fuck of every surface in the flat, desperately hungry for each other. That’s the difference, she thinks, love gone from white hot and needy to something comfortable and soft, where she doesn’t have to try so hard all the time, and keeping contraception handy is not their biggest and only worry. She wonders what it would be like to have a child, to raise a few sproglets with Mike’s eyes and her smile, to be lover and mother, how she would fill both of those roles. As Mike’s hand lies heavily on her shoulder, his soft breathing the only sound in the room, she lets her smile curve against the skin of his chest, and plans their future.


End file.
